House Democratic Caucus Chair Robert Johnson has requested a joint meeting of the health and welfare committees to look into the legal action undertaken by Attorney General Jeff Landry regarding the Affordable Care Act.
Landry recently joined a lawsuit brought by Texas AG Ken Paxton challenging the legality the ACA. Johnson said the caucus is concerned the litigation could jeopardize the nearly 840,000 Louisianans on insurance rolls with pre-existing conditions.
“We want to ask the attorney general to come before the committee and possibly discuss a timeline for when that injunction would be issued and what Louisiana would be looking at, as the Legislature would be the ones having to come up with some type of plan,” Johnson said last week.
Looking ahead to the 2019 regular session, Johnson said caucus members have been staying in touch and coordinating policy plans. A pay raise for teachers is almost certain to be on the docket when lawmakers re-convene, he said, and Gov. John Bel Edwards has called it his “number one priority.” Johnson said he does not expect the debate over pay raises to be contentious.
“I don’t think of it as a partisan issue,” he said. “I think that’s a common-sense Louisiana issue.”
They said it: “We’re connected not at the hip but at the heart.”—LSU Health Sciences Center Shreveport Chancellor G.E. Ghali, on the new partnership with Oschner, in The Shreveport Times
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
